Swansea to Seattle: Steve finds the right place

The I Found the Right Place programme invites employees working across the UK to tell the company why Amazon is the right place for them and what they love most about life at Amazon.

Almost 1,000 employees from across Amazon’s UK customer fulfilment network took part and the associates with the best stories will visit Amazon’s global headquarters in Seattle.

Steve Phillips (26) is the Amazon employee from Swansea whose story has secured his place on the trip. Steve works at Amazon in Swansea as a Learner Specialist and has been with Amazon since 2011. In that time, he’s worked at many other Amazon fulfilment centres including Gourock, Dunfermline, Bolton, Warrington and Manchester.

In his story, Steve went into great detail about how working at Amazon has not only helped him live and work in many different locations around the UK, but it’s also helped him buy his first home.

In Seattle, Steve and his colleagues from across the UK will visit the Space Needle and have a tour of Amazon’s global headquarters and a robotics fulfilment centre. During their trip to the robotics centre, Steve and his colleagues will meet Amazon’s Chief Scientist.

“Working at Amazon has been fantastic for me. I really enjoy my job – there’s something different to work on every day. I can’t think of anything worse than working in a boring job and that’s why I love Amazon – there are opportunities everywhere” he said.

“When I left school, I thought I’d have a standard 9-5 job but I’m glad that I’ve not ended up doing that. The people here are fantastic and programmes like I Found the Right Place really make it a brilliant place to work” he added.

Steve, who’s currently doing a sign language course in his spare time, is excited for his trip. He said: “When I found out I’d won, I couldn’t believe it. I’ve entered I Found the Right Place lots of times but I’ve never won. It’s amazing! Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me and I’m over the moon. It’ll be great to see the Amazon of America and see how differently they do things to us here in the UK.  I’m also really excited to travel to the US because I’ve never been before. That in itself is a big deal for me.”

Chris Law, Site Leader at Amazon Swansea, added:

“I Found the Right Place is a great programme and I really enjoyed reading the different stories about why people love working at Amazon. Amazon is passionate about providing a fun and positive work environment for our employees with industry-leading pay and great benefits and it’s fantastic that so many have taken part in I Found the Right Place. I’m excited that Steve will be setting off to Seattle on what will be the trip of a lifetime.”

Amazon employees have access to a wide range of benefits, including private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection, subsidised meals, an employee discount, which combined are worth more than £700 annually, as well as a company pension plan.

Amazon also offers employees the opportunity to participate in an innovative programme called Career Choice. Career Choice provides funding for adult education, offering to pre-pay 95% of tuition and associated fees for nationally recognised courses, up to £8,000 over four years.